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The Bloody Great Big
Blue Peter Bring & Buy Sale

[back to the information desk] This article is real and unmodified by myself, so it isn't actually that funny. It stands as another piece of memorobilia from the crazy hey-days of our mumbling chum. Thanks once again to the chap called Twisticles, who is twelve feet tall with the heart of an ox. For those of you who don't know what a Bring & Buy Sale is; basically, you "bring" everything in your attic that you don't want - wedding dresses, fantasy books about dragons, and loud shirts - and someone else "buys" them. Thus exacting a "sale". Blue Peter then keeps the money, and buys a bungalow with them. Fair enough. This article is reproduced from the BBC website. I merely cut it to prevent them ever being able to remove their frankly shocking treatment of our Joey. You can currently see their version here. 1980 - The Great Blue Peter Bring & Buy Sale for the Disabled The idea for the Appeal sprang from a remarkable man, sixty year old Joey Deacon, who suffered from cerebral palsy seriously affecting all four limbs and also his speech. Joey achieved international fame when his life story was retold in the moving documentary "Joey", and as a result of the film and Joey's book, "Tongue Tied", enough funds were raised to build three bungalows in the grounds of St Lawrence's Hospital in Caterham, where Joey and his friends Ernie, Tom and Michael spent most of their lives. They and other handicapped patients had been able to move from their wards and live in proper homes of their own. The aim of the Appeal was to raise enough money for four bungalows built specially for handicapped people in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, plus fifty electric cars for disabled adults and children. In addition we also aimed to prevent handicap in newborn babies by the provision of two neonatal intensive care incubators for hospitals in the Midlands and the North East. As it costs about half a million pounds to support one handicapped person throughout his or her life, the prevention of handicap at birth is highly desirable - quite apart from avoiding the anguish and strain that is suffered by families of the handicapped babies. The incubators help to stop handicaps developing in babies. We hoped to raise £500,000 for the bungalows, electric cars and incubators. It only took ten weeks to do this. By 12th February 1981 £500,000 had been raised. By the Spring, the donations had soared to over one million pounds and 13,195 Great Blue Peter Bring & Buy Sales had been held. In March 1985 a Blue Peter Flat for the Disabled was opened by Her Majesty The Queen inside the YWCA's Helen Graham House, in London. The flat is on the ground floor and has all kinds of special facilities for a disabled person.
TARGET 4 bungalows 50 electric cars 2 neonatal incubators | RESULT 6 bungalows at Caterham, Belfast, Lanark, Cardiff, Eastry and Sunderland. 1 Blue Peter Flat in the YMCA's Helen Graham House in London, opened by the Queen. 15 Ortho-kinetic chairs 2 neonatal incubators based in Newcastle and Birmingham Neonatal equipment for 23 hospitals across Britain Equipment for 274 schools across Britain.
So, Joey did a lot of good. Fifteen people got to sit down, and six houses were built - all thanks to people selling a load of shit in their village hall. But where were the electric cars? I wanted to see a fifty strong fleet of spazmoids - um, sufferers - coming over the horizon in Sinclair C5's, as a cloud of post-apocalyptic dust rises around them, and only a repetetive grunting sound can be heard over the scuttling of the cockroaches. [back to the information desk]